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Local lawmaker requests Ohio National Guard help transport Euclid City school students

Other schools face similar issues
School generic
Posted at 6:02 PM, Sep 21, 2021
and last updated 2021-09-21 18:26:04-04

EUCLID, Ohio — The COVID-19 pandemic is putting the brakes on some school bus transportation in school districts across Ohio, including here in Northeast Ohio. Euclid City School District is one of them.

"The superintendent reached out to me late yesterday afternoon and said, 'Hey we’ve got a real problem. I’ve got 25% of my bus drivers out due to a COVID diagnosis or COVID protocols because of exposure to the virus,'” said State Representative Kent Smith, 8th House District.

That prompted Smith to send a letter to Gov. Mike Dewine asking that the Ohio National Guard be deployed to help deliver Euclid City School Students to and from classrooms.

“As this global pandemic unfolds in a number of ways, the Ohio National Guard has provided key personnel at critical junctures during the pandemic like administering shots in the Wolstein Center to working with the Cleveland Food Bank to deliver food and right now we might need them not to deliver food or shots but children" said Smith.

DeWine acknowledged the problem exists statewide at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.

“I’ve asked General Harris and other senior members of my team to take a look at this, to see what can be done. General Harris is in the process of putting an option together and we should have something to be able to talk about in the next day or two,” said DeWine.

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